Glory Days The 76ers have played in Philadelphia since the fall of 1963 h However the club is much older than that In fact it’s older than the NBA The team actually got its start in the 1930s thanks to Danny Biasone the owner of a bowling alley in Syracuse New York He called his club the Nationals or Nats for short In 1946 Biasone decided the Nats were good enough to join the National Basketball League NBL hldlh h f ll f l d 6 h 6 The NBL was made up primarily of teams from the Midwest Ohio Valley and Western New York Meanwhile a newer league the Basketball Association of America BAA placed teams in larger cities In 1949 50 the NBL and BAA joined forces to become the NBA The Nationals reached the NBA Finals in their first year in the league Player-coach Al Cervi led a club that starred two of pro basketball’s best young players guard Paul Seymour and center Dolph Schayes 6
The Nats hustled all over the court and played great defense Syracuse became one of the NBA’s best teams and won the 1954 55 title In addition to Schayes and Seymour the Nationals featured Red Rocha Earl Lloyd George King and Johnny Kerr One of the teams competing against the Nats at this time was the Philadelphia Warriors In 1962 the Warriors left Philadelphia for the West Coast where they still play today This move provided an opportunity for the Nationals They had loyal fans in Syracuse but the team needed to find a new home in a bigger city The Nats moved to Philadelphia in 1963 and were renamed the 76ers In 1965 the 76ers traded with the Warriors for Wilt Chamberlain the top-scoring center in the league Chamberlain had grown up in Philadelphia before joining his hometown team When the Warriors moved to California so did he Chamberlain’s return to Philadelphia was a huge success He was an All-Star LEFT Paul Seymour was one of the first stars for the Nats ABOVE Wilt Chamberlain throws down a dunk 7
every season as a Sixer and turned the team into a powerhouse In 1966 67 the 76ers set an NBA record by winning 68 games The team surrounded Chamberlain with talented players including Hal Greer Wali Jones Chet Walker Luke Jackson and Billy Cunningham Philadelphia faced the Warriors in the NBA Finals and defeated them to win the championship The 76ers continued their winning ways in the 1970s thanks to stars such as George McGinnis Bobby Jones Caldwell Jones Darryl Dawkins Doug Collins and World B Free No one was better than a high-flying forward named Julius Erving However Philadelphia’s next title did not come until 1982 83 Billy Cunningham a member of the 1967 champs coached the 76ers that season Erving teamed up with Maurice Cheeks and Moses Malone who was voted the NBA’s Most Valuable Player MVP The 76ers won 65 games during the regular season and lost only once in the playoffs on the way to the NBA championship LEFT Julius Erving was a nearly unstoppable scorer ABOVE Moses Malone led the 76ers to the Promised Land in 1982 83 9
